I'm facing something of a moral dilemma and I wanted your thoughts on it.

I am about to purchase a Mac Mini and I will be using it for primarily an always-on file and print server although I will probably be using it day to day too so I can learn about the Mac OS X interface. Part of this day to day use will involve music files and I would like to use iTunes to rip CD's that I own and also to purchase music from the iTMS.

My question is this: where would I legally stand if I used something like Hymn to remove the copy protection that is found on tracks purchased from iTMS? The files produced would be for my own personal use on three computers all located within my household.

Ideally, I don't want to have to use iTunes or iTMS but to get access to a decent music catalogue I feel that I need to use DRM enabled software. This kind of flies in the face of Open Source that I have tried to adopt in it's fullest sense. What are other peoples thoughts on this, and the rise in digital music that is unusable under GNU/Linux?

You'd probably be liable to prosecution. In this case the offence is circumventing the copy protection. The same is true with encrypted DVD content. It's like breaking the lock on someone's house. You could argue that your CD & DVD players circumvent the copy protection in order to render the content for humans, but I wouldn't bet on it. And if it came to it, could you bear the financial cost of any legal action?

It could be DVD Jon all over again. He got off in the end. All he did was write a bit of code so that you could play DVDs under Linux, let's face it it's dead easy to rip DVDs under Windoze and nobody's prosecuted anyone for distributing that. It was just that DVD Jon's code showed how simple it was and embarrassed the industry.

My view is buy your music on CD and rip it for your personal. They charge too much for downloads and the quality isn't as good.

Morally? It's yours to do whatever the hell you want with! I make backup copies of all DVD's and CD's I purchase. As everyone knows DVD/CD disks are very easily damaged and rendered useless.
The RIAA can sue me all the want. After all I don't have anything of real value to them, the pc I'm typing this on and a guitar, the two most valuable items I own and id be lucky to get £300 for both of em'
Plus, I wouldn't mind the chance to voice my opinions to the media while they are busy suing me.
Besides, the vast majority of music I listen to is from the 70's-80's-early 90's its not like the big record labels are making millions of those era's any more?!

They can stick their DRM low quality crap right up their fudge tunnels I'm sticking with CD's and MP3's.

As for p2p, well, all I can say is if I had to pay for all the music I own I would be bankrupt!
At the end of the day, if I had to, I wouldn't pay for most of the music I own. So they didn't really 'lose' any revenue there. If I couldn't get it on p2p I wouldn't bother buying it. Not that the RIAA will see the logic in that.

F**k em'

Do whatever you want, if you are worried about legal implications just don't let them find out

Would it be possible to use iTunes on the other PCs (Windows version or via CrossOver) as well? I have 'illegally' downloaded some music, but these were tracks from vinyl LPs that I own so I figure I have a 'license' to listen to those records even though I don't have a record player. I have also occasionally copied CDs from friends and family, but if I listen to it a few times, I tend to buy it anyway - plus the CD player in my car doesn't like CD-Rs.

iTunes is a well put together system, but it's still cheaper to buy CDs from somewhere like CD-Wow (£8.99 for a single CD versus about £9.99 from ITMS) and rip it to the Mac Mini (lovely computer, by the way). That way you can stick all your music into a Samba shared folder and then mount that from whatever PC you like.

On a similar issue, has anyone a domestic hifi system that includes a DVD that won't play copy-protected audio CDs? The little tricks these people employ to stop them playing on computers are useless! Grip/CDparanoia/Konqueror etc just rips them! KsCD and cdcd just play them. Even in Windoze, anyone with Nero can use multimounter to find the "other" Table of Contents!

So you get forced to make illegal copies of Audio CDs just so you can play them on your domestic hi-fi!

15 July 2003 6:07 by dRD
[picture]Friday, 11th of July, was truly a sad day for Europe, free speech and fair use rights. The largest European Union member country, Germany, passed its own implementation of draconian DMCA-like law called as European Union Copyright Directive.

The law, that is now in effect in five member states (Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and Italy) makes it illegal to distribute (even for free), sell, manufacture, develope or advertise tools or software utilities that allow circumventing copy protections. This applies to all copy protection mechanisms, including cracking the CSS that's found on most DVD-Video discs, circumventing audio CD copy protections, etc.

German implementation of the law went even further than what the EUCD itself required -- German version of the EUCD implementation makes it illegal to even discuss about circumventing copy protections in public (as on Net pages).

The chilling effects of the German law can already be seen here and there -- most obvious is the fate of the Linux DVD ripper, dvd::rip. The new versions of the software don't include settings for cracking the CSS code at all as the software is being hosted and developed in Germany.

Rest of the Europe should follow the suit within next couple of months -- United Kingdom has already published its draft of its own implementation and other member states are preparing (or have done so already) to do so very shortly.

YET AGAIN, those who are put in power as _our voice_ using our tax payers money, use that money to keep themselves in power, and are using our money to do whatever companies who's extorionate profits are made from our money, to shaft us, AGAIN!

If I didn't pay any attention to politics at all, then I probably wouln't be so cynical at a young age, they wonder why there's so much apathy. Its a deffence mechanism so you don't find yourself thinking "what a load of bollox a democratic capitalist society we live in", you just ignore it and get on with making the best life possible and hopefully enjoying most of it. As soon as you start looking into any aspect of western life, you see money corrupting everything. Of course most of us are very lucky to have this way of life compared to a lot of people, and yes I'm well off down a deep ranting road, but damn it, a lot of top business and politicions appear to
a. not have a clue
b. not give a shit
c. be lying manipulative TWATS

Its a big brush and Im tarring a boat load of people with a not very linux related rant, but it does make you feel tired.

I think Im off to buy a shack in Nepal..... just as long as they've got broadband

I just picked up a basic Mac Mini with the intention of upgrading the memory when I have the cash spare (in about 2022, I think). I dual-boot with OS-X and Ubuntu PPC and it's okay. OS-X on it's own handles Samba really well, you just go into the control centre (or whatever they call) it and select 'Sharing > Windows Sharing' From there it joined the 'Workgroup' (sensibly called "Workgroup") and the permissions setting is just the same as in Linux really.

It's also possible, if you don't want to partition the disk (and if you do, do it before you start installing OS-X applications - the partition manager WON'T resize partitions, it just wipes them) you could always try QEMU and use a x86 distribution. There's a nice OS-X version called, I think, XQEMU.

There's a bit about using the Mac Mini with Linux in the next issue of the magazine...

Where does the idea come from that it's illegal to circumvent copy protection or DRM? I didn't think it was illegal (yet) - at least in the UK.

Personally, I would try to stay away from copy-protected stuff on principle, but I have no qualms about circumventing Macrovision (for example) on ntl's pay-per-view in order to record films, since I'm already paying for the cable TV service. I imagine that doing so is perfectly legal for the same reasons as using a VCR to record TV is perfectly legal.

(For the curious: TV tuner cards seem to be impervious to Macrovision. )

I would say that, at a push, most of the things people have advocated on here - recording CDs to put in the car, downloading copies of pre-owned music, bypassing DRM to put iTMS stuff on non-Apple players - could all be defended on fair use grounds. The problem is that Apple, Sony, et al can afford better lawyers than most individuals.

I've even heard someone say that making backups of *rented* DVDs is allowable under the 'time shift' element of fair use, but I wouldn't like to test this. However, I have a small dilemma: I have a legitimate version of a BBC DVD (it's my daughter's favourite), but someone sat on it and cracked disc 1. This disc on my rental list with a well-known DVD rental site. Am I allowed to copy the rental version in order to replace the already paid for disc? In essence, this is a question about whether I own a physical disc or a license to access the content. If it's the latter (as I would assume) then I'm legally safe?

According to the MPAA and cronies, what you have bought is the physical media and a license to access the content on it, and nothing else. The content is inseperable from the media.
Except, of course, they also restrict you as to what hardware/software you can use when accessing it.
Which, quite frankly, sucks.
But it is their product, and they have the right to license it as they wish. You don't have to buy it...
I wonder what the reaction would be to a mass protest - would it cause them to rethink if everybody refused to buy any CD or DVD on a particular day, world-wide ?